Friday’s WWE Smackdown Rating, Raw Franchise Players & More

- Friday’s episode of SmackDown did a 1.7 cable rating, with 2.53 million viewers. Those numbers are down 11% and 7%, respectively, from the previous week. It was the lowest rating for a first-run Friday episode this year and the fewest viewers since the show before WrestleMania on March 30th. The show ranked #6 overall in viewers, one of the rare times a first-run episode has missed out on the Top 5 over the past two years. The show ranked #5 among males 18-34 and #2 among males 18-49. For males 18 – 49 the show was #1 in its timeslot but took big hits in the key male demos number-wise, down 16.1% among men 18-49, 15.3% among males 18-34 and 8.5% among males 12-34 compared to last week. At this point last year, Smackdown scored the same 1.7 rating and was up slightly from this year in viewership with 2.60 million.

– Caller.com features an article on the WWE Smackdown tapings for Tuesday, July 3rd.

– WWE.com posted a new article looking at the five franchise players on RAW. The article lists John Cena, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Dolph Ziggler and Lord Tensai as the leaders of the RAW brand.